Facts about Woodbridge
General Info
Woodbridge is a town in Suffolk, East Anglia, England, about 8 miles from the seashore, along the River Deben. The town is served by Woodbridge railway station on the East Suffolk Line. It lies a short distance from the wider Ipswich urban area. Woodbridge is close to some of the main archaeological sites from the Anglo-Saxon period, one of which includes the Sutton Hoo burial ship. The town’s 1100 years of recorded history have bequeathed a variety of historical architecture. There are facilities for boating and for riverside walks.
Woodbridge History
In the early 7th century, King Rædwald of East Anglia was Bretwalda, the most powerful king in England. He died about 624 and is probably the king buried at Sutton Hoo, across the River Deben from Woodbridge. The burial ship is 89 feet long. When its treasures were discovered in 1939, they were the richest ever found on British soil.
They are held now in the British Museum in London, but replicas of some items and the story of the finds can be seen in the Woodbridge Museum. The National Trust has built a visitor centre on the site. The earliest record of Woodbridge as such dates from the mid-10th century, when it was acquired by St Aethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, as part of the endowment of the monastery that he helped to refound at Ely, Cambridgeshire in 970.
